Nostalgia

Do you ever get that bittersweet feeling when you reminisce about some distant period of your life, like it was the best time ever? Like the sky was bluer, the grass greener, you were happier and the world just made sense?

Research suggests that the odds are in favor of your having experienced something like that. In all likelihood, the period of your life that draws nostalgic feelings is from childhood, adolescence or young adulthood. Chances are, you recall events and people from this past vividly, and you feel good afterward, as nostalgia lifts your self-esteem and makes you feel more socially connected and less lonely.

I let myself indulge in nostalgic feelings. Every year I try to visit my hometown, which happens to be nine hours of flight away. So much has changed there since I left—old buildings disappeared, new ones sprung up in their places; streets took different shapes conforming to the swelling of traffic. But the house where I was born and grew up still stands, as it did for hundreds of years. And the golden domes of St. Sophia’s Cathedral are still visible, though now obscured by the trees, from the window that used to be mine. I spent sleepless nights at that window, sometimes studying for exams, other times restless with thoughts.

Interestingly, it was NOT the best time of my life. Back then I was not sure where my life was going or who I wanted to be. It was a time of Great Expectations, but little achievement. Yet I cherish the glimpses of the past that is of no apparent use in the present.

There is no good reason to be nostalgic. No useful lesson can be drawn from recalling a time I was walking in a park with my dog. There is no boost to my evolutionary fitness in remembering the way the city sounded and smelled in the early morning hours. Psychologists say there is Negativity Dominance—a tendency to remember and notice negative events and stimuli more than than we do positive ones. Pain sticks with us more than pleasure. Yet when I look back on this period of my life, the memories are mostly positive.

What’s the point in mental storage of items that nobody but me can appreciate, that carry no meaning beyond the knowledge that they are mine?

Perhaps nostalgia is a side effect of growing up, a result of passing through a particularly, as they say, impressionable age? Are the eyes of a 17-year old just more receptive, and more positive, than, say, those of a 40-year old? For myself, I can testify against this hypothesis. What seems like the sweetest memory now did not elicit any sentiment at the time it was formed. Back then it was just what life looked, sounded and smelled like, nothing special.

My very off-the-cuff theory is that nostalgia is book-binding for our personal life story. Think about it: we live so many narratives, and wear so many faces, that sometimes it is hard to know how we got to where we are. I used to love Abstract Algebra, but now it has no place in my life. I used to be friends with so-and-so, but now I would not know how to start a conversation if we were stuck in an elevator together. I am the same person, just different. How to reconcile these discrepancies without feeling aimless, unpredictable, or bipolar?

I am suggesting that nostalgia is like a tuning fork—a musical resonator that, when struck, produces a perfect tone to which one’s life can be tuned. All other undertones and overtones, false notes and high notes of our lives die out for a moment, and in that moment, it is pure YOU. Though it was decades ago, I could still picture ME walking the park’s path, and breathing in the morning air. Nobody but me knows exactly what it felt like. Though I am different now, I can still appreciate the light of the golden domes in the window.

Yes, we are animalistic in nature, and evolution and avoidance of pain and other negatives drive us. But we are also creatures of stories that raise us above the animal world.

Nostalgia tunes to the pure you. Looking back, nostalgia gives our life story continuity and authenticity. No wonder it feels so good.